


racing you, erasing you

by revolutionnaire



Series: nothing left to burn [3]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 03:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2008437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionnaire/pseuds/revolutionnaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Kimi has left Formula 1, there's no reason for him and Felipe to ever see each other again. The problem is that isn't necessarily what either one of them want.</p><p>(Set during the 2010 and 2011 season.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	racing you, erasing you

**Author's Note:**

> _so i drove straight_  
>  _into my own tomorrow_  
>  _i'm racing you_  
>  _erasing you_  
>  \- _95_ , wideband network
> 
> {[fanmix](http://8tracks.com/revolutionnaire/racing-you-erasing-you)}  
> 
> 
>   
> for my friend [aitakute](http://aitakute.livejournal.com). it was this pairing that brought us together as well as this song, and six years later, i'm still so grateful for it. hope you enjoy this monstrosity!  
> p.s. some of the x's are clickable! 

 

x.

Felipe, for the most part, has resigned himself to never seeing Kimi ever again.

A bit dramatic perhaps, but it's only logical.

After all, what are they without the race track between them?

 

 

x.

It starts, innocently enough, with a text message that comes three races into the season, just when he's starting to get used to a Formula 1 without Kimi Raikkonen.

Two races after that, Kimi calls. It isn't the strangest thing Kimi's done by far - Christ, even just thinking about some of them makes him blush still - but it's still strange. Kimi hates his phone, says it makes everyone "over-connected", whatever that means.

So yes, innocently enough. A few messages and a few calls; just old colleagues politely keeping in touch.

 

 

x.

Except. That's not really what they are, is it?

More than colleagues. More than team mates. He knows this now. You don't share victories and losses, fight the same battles and each other; you don't clash teeth and egos; you don't cry on his shoulder at two in the morning and then hold his hand under the table at morning practice, kiss him later at night in his hotel room and remain the same. You don't do this and go back to being team mates in the garage the next day and go out there and drive for two hours and put your arms around each other in nothing more than congratulations.

 

 

x.

They carry on for a while, exchanging messages and the occasional phone call. Kimi is busy with his rally work, but they never go very long without hearing from each other. It sneaks into his life, and before he knows it, he's started carrying his phone with him wherever he goes. He doesn't think it's strange that he and Kimi are effectively communicating far more than they had when they were both at Ferrari.

It should have been the first warning sign he should have noticed, to be honest.

But something in him blocks it out. He likes the messages and the phone calls and Kimi's voice, and Felipe doesn't want to lose it yet.

 

 

[x](http://instagram.com/p/caeERiHLft/). 

_probably should stop all the time messaging._

 

_why?_

 

_rafaella says I am too much on my phone._

 

_tell her you're playing your stupid candy game._

 

Felipe laughs despite himself, because in his head he can see the self-satisfied smirk tugging at Kimi's lips, the crinkling beginning at the corners of his eyes. He is not surprised when he realises he misses it.

He writes back:

 

_I am already level 200!_

 

 

x.

January rolls by and it's back up the Alps for the pre-season ski trip. Again it's too cold, and although it's been a year since Kimi left, it's still just a little strange to see Alonso beside him and not Kimi. Kimi in the blinding white snow and Ferrari red-- that's what he remembers. Kimi's cheeks flushed from the cold, the smile stretching his face from ear to ear. Kimi leaving him behind in a flurry of powder-white snow.

And then pale hair and pale eyes blending so well into the snow around them, he quite nearly misses it at first.

So there stands Kimi Raikkonen before him now, not as a team mate, not as a rival, and not quite a friend.

It's something dangerous, he knows. He'd always wondered in the past but now he knows for sure-- this is them meeting as people. As Kimi, and as Felipe, as two men that have no reason to be together now except for the fact that they want to.

"Why are you here," Felipe manages. It's their first time meeting in person. Felipe isn't sure what to do - a handshake? a hug? a kiss? what do you do when you see someone after the seasons they shared together?

"Wanted to see you."

"Why?"

"Don't know," says Kimi, looking away, squinting when the sun gets into his eyes. "Just wanted to."

 

 

x.

"I booked a small inn somewhere, further down the mountain. Quiet, nice. Nobody says who I am."

"Is this a good idea?"

"I don't know."

He finally brings himself to broach the topic.

"What did you tell Jenni?"

"Nothing," Kimi says, impassive, giving away nothing. "We don't live together anymore."

"Okay," he says and refuses to acknowledge the trill that races through his heart as anything more than excitement at seeing an old friend again.

 

 

x.

At night, they fall back into each other. Like their bodies had never forgotten. It's so easy, how it all comes rushing back to him. It's the same, but different. If in the past they could blame it all on the emotions of the race, the adrenaline and the euphoria and the heartbreak-- not anymore. They have nothing now but memories and apparently that's enough, more than enough; enough for Kimi to gather him into his arms even before the hotel door closes behind them, enough for them to kiss, over and over again, whimpering each others' names into their mouths and Felipe, marvelling at how natural it feels on his tongue.

"Fuck," he hears Kimi moan. "Felipe."

Kimi has a way of saying his name that has always, always for as long as he can remember, always felt like a sucker punch to the stomach.

_Felipe._

Like his voice is kissing each syllable.

 

 

x.

Kimi sends him a message on the way to the airport to wish him a good flight.

Ten hours after he lands in Brazil, he finally replies.

_i have a son now._

Almost immediately his phone vibrates with a response, and he spends the next hour staring at the solitary glowing line of text.

_your son would want his father to be happy_

 

 

x.

There is, after that, three months of complete silence.

 

 

x.

Then in Istanbul, after the race, a knocking at his hotel door.

It is both a surprise and not.

Felipe is exhausted; the race has been harder on him than usual, but somehow gathers up the energy to glare at him.

"My family,” he hisses. “What if they are here?"

"But they're not. I checked."

Only now does Felipe notice that there is an ice-cold bottle of vodka in his hands.

"What are you doing," Felipe sighs, tired.

"A drink."

They had rarely ever shared a drink, strangely enough, in all their years together. Not to celebrate, and not to grieve. He's not sure why. Perhaps they never needed to. There were a few drinks in the beginning, but after a while the alcohol seemed to become unnecessary. Maybe they had learned quickly that their poison of choice was each other.

But tonight he allows Kimi to pour him a glass.

He's never learnt to love vodka. He takes a careless gulp and splutters as it sears its way down his throat and into the empty pit of his stomach.

A wicked thought comes to his head. Felipe is not a spiteful man by any means; he is not a cruel person. But the last few years have changed him, maybe. Just a little bit. He inhales slowly and grimaces, the raw burn of the alcohol still a bit too harsh for his liking. Kimi is watching him intently, he realises.

Felipe feels a sneer spread across his face, cruel and bitter and wicked and everything he is not.

"If I wanted something cold and painful, why not I just kiss you, no?" And so he does, reaching across the table and tasting what he has come to realise is familiarity.

 

 

x.

He still remembers the first time they kissed.

It was embarrassing, he thinks now. But maybe it was bound to happen. The almost adolescent way his heart had nearly leapt out of his chest. How every inch of skin had felt alight with sparks of energy when Kimi's lips were mere centimetres in front of his own. How desperate, how much he had needed and wanted to close that space, to crush himself against the man before him. How Kimi's hair felt tangled in between his fingers, the press of Kimi's palm against the small of his back, Kimi's breath warm against his face.

What the hell, he remembers thinking. What the hell, what the hell. He had never done this before-- never liked another guy, never kissed another guy, and of all the people in the world, and there he was, with Kimi Raikkonen.

 

 

x.

If Felipe has hurt him, Kimi makes no indication of it.

Kimi kisses him back, silent but not any less earnest. In their time together, Felipe has learnt how to tease meaning from his silence, and perhaps now, after years and years, he understands Kimi finally, understands that there is so much more that can be said without speech. Against him, Kimi's is rough and hard, although whether it is out of apology or anger, Felipe isn't sure.

He wants to be angry, he does. He's had enough now -- years of smiling and taking it and being the good guy and letting everyone do whatever they wanted with him, letting Kimi have his way with him - but Kimi's lips on his are magic, so familiar yet so painfully far away, and Kimi's fingers digging into the small of his back like he's something Kimi needs.

They kiss until their lips feel raw and their breath comes hard and fast, until Felipe isn't sure where he ends and Kimi begins.

 

 

x.

It's never the same with anyone else. Whatever it is Kimi does, whatever spell he holds over him, it's something Felipe knows he'll never feel anywhere else and he hates that.

Hates Kimi's tongue and his mouth. Hates how Kimi knows how to touch him so he loses himself, how to send him spiraling over the edge. Hates the way Kimi is making him gasp and groan, how his breath is coming in pathetic mewling sobs.

"Your voice," Kimi pants, his own voice thick and dark with desire. "So hot. I like it."

"Kimi," Felipe whines his name and oh god, he really does sound obscene, breath ragged and choking on pleasure. It drags a moan from the depths of Kimi's throat.

 

 

x.

"Can't believe you get me drunk," moans Felipe.

Next to him, Kimi laughs.

He's still trying to get used to this-- this, them away from the sport, away from the track, away from all the things that brought them together in the first place. This-- them as two people who, for some inexplicable reason, are tangled in bedsheets, hungover and laughing in the middle of the day.

Kimi puts an arm around his shoulders and draws him close. Felipe isn't prepared for this. The intimacy, the affection. And he certainly isn't prepared for what Kimi says next.

"I missed you."

 

 

x.

Another month goes by and like clockwork, another phone call comes.

"Will you come and see me?"

It's not like Kimi to ask.

But then again, it's not like Felipe either to cheat on his wife.

Felipe's voice is soft, his response equally as surprising, when he replies. He stuns himself, how tender he sounds on the phone, as though there really was some lingering sentiment for Kimi and whatever it is they have between them.

"I'll try."

 

 

x.

How many more hotel rooms? How many more covert meetings and secret goodbyes? How many more nights of lying awake in bed, gripping his phone like it's a lifeline and in some twisted way, it is.

Because Kimi Raikkonen has snaked into his life, and like poison, slipped through his veins and into his blood and made himself at home in his heart.

 

 

x.

At practice the next day, Rob furrows his brow when Felipe says he's taking the next week off, but says nothing.

Maybe one day he'll explain himself.

 

 

x.

They do this.

They meet.

They talk about their past, their shared history. They fuck.

Maybe they fall in love, or something like it, a little bit.

 

 

x.

"Kimi. They-- they're not here. Felipinho is sick. No, just the flu. Yeah, I'm alone."

And then in Italian, their shared secret language:

" _Ti aspetto._ "

 

 

x.

Kimi shows up with all eight seasons of _24_ on DVD.

"Your favourite show," he says, like Felipe needed reminding. "I've never watched."

"Okay," says Felipe, allowing himself a smile as he opens the door to let Kimi in.

Halfway during the opening credits, Kimi leans over and kisses him, short and sweet, before he takes his hand.

Felipe's not quite sure how they end up like this. On a couch in a hotel room , holding hands and watching TV.

So yeah, he was right. Things aren't the same anymore. They couldn't be, not with the way they'd been carrying on the past few months. They were changing, faster than he could keep up with.

When he thinks about it though, he really should have seen it coming.

It may have started stupid, with a little too much alcohol and even more heartbreak. But there had to be something that made them keep coming back, right? The same something that made them find each other race after race and night after night, and chase each other across continents. The same something that made Kimi smile at him that secret smile, that made Felipe lie and cheat and sin. Something that made them right.

 

 

x.

Even the way Kimi talks to him - looks at him - has changed.

"It was the best year of my career, 2007," he says one night, in the silence of a Belgian hotel room.

"Yeah, for sure," Felipe says. "You were the world champion."

"More than that," Felipe thinks he hears Kimi mumble, but they fall silent then, still enough for Felipe to start to think--but not too much. Too much and the reality of his circumstances - this, Kimi in his bed, Kimi's hand curling around his wrist - becomes a little too much to bear.

"Hey," says Kimi, sitting up, and Felipe really doesn't like how his voice has changed- gone soft and gravelly, and how his eyes, strong and unwavering as always, are suddenly boring straight into his own.

"If you still don't know," Kimi says. "I like you a lot."

I know.

You idiot, I know.

 

 

x.

"How do you think we'd be in a rally car?"

"No," Kimi laughs, and Felipe does too, loving Kimi's laugh, how he can make him laugh. "No, please."

"Why not?" demands Felipe, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

But then it crash-lands heavy in his heart, the realisation that it's stupid things like this that got him into this whole damn fix in the first place.

And god, it's stupid, it's so fucking stupid how he's lying there with Kimi's arm around him, his cheek pressed flush against the cold skin of Kimi's chest. Stupid how happy it makes him.

The alcohol they'd drunk earlier is heavy in his veins. His heart and mind are growing sluggish, he can hear the blood pound in his head, over the content hum of Kimi's breathing under him. Kimi's hand is cool and smooth on his thigh, running lazy sweeping strokes up and down his aching muscles. Despite himself, his blood stirs.

Kimi notices. Turns his glacier gaze onto Felipe.

"You want," is all he says, voice dropping low and husky and he doesn't have to finish his sentence because Felipe already knows.

Yes.

 

 

[x](http://instagram.com/p/Vd9n3nHLcP/) & [x](http://instagram.com/p/Vd_JM_HLdT/).

The next time Kimi shows up is in the middle of Sunday lunch at home, when Rafaella and Felipinho are home.

"You said you wanted this," he says, thrusting the battered helmet into Felipe's arms.

He laughs, jovial over the alarm bells going into overdrive in his head.

"I was joking!"

Then, when he pushes Kimi out into the porch, when he's sure Rafaella is out of earshot, "why are you doing this?"

"I would rather see you once than stare at this dirty helmet everyday," he shrugs. "And the helmet protects my head. Thought you could use some of that. Protection."

Kimi looks at him, like he wants to touch the scar tissue by his temple. Felipe moves before he can.

"What's in the bag?"

Kimi hesitates, reluctant to answer. Finally, he reaches into the bag and produces a perfect miniature replica of his helmet.

"I brought one for Felipinho."

He holds it out, his eyes searching Felipe's for approval.

And even as he says thank you, Felipe's heart plummets in his chest.

 

 

x.

Lying there, curled into Kimi's side, Felipe thinks about them. Felipe's always run a little warm, the Brazilian sun in his blood and under his skin, he used to joke. But Kimi is cool to the touch, pale languid limbs and surprisingly narrow bones that Felipe somehow never gets tired looking at.

The next morning, when Kimi is long gone, the shirt he leaves behind lies quietly folded in one of Felipe's desk drawers.

For weeks Felipe will press it to his face and inhale what's left of Kimi's scent. He doesn't want to think of what it's doing to his head and his heart, those tiny innumerable things, chemical signals, electrical signals, what have you.

 

 

x.

The next time they meet, Kimi is wearing his hair cropped short. Felipe runs his fingers over it.

"I like it," he decides, smiling at Kimi. His face has changed a little too, wind burnt and ruddy from his winter holidays. Felipe notices the beginnings of creases by his eyes and mouth, no longer the fair, milk-skinned blue-eyed boy Felipe remembers. Has it really been that long?

"Getting old." Kimi shrugs apologetically.

"You're still so handsome anyway," Felipe says, only half teasing. "Iceman."

Kimi's eyes crinkle then, in the way Felipe has come to love. His cheeks flush at the compliment, and Felipe adores him all the more for it.

"I have to lose weight," Kimi grumbles, rolling his eyes. "You know when I was in Ferrari, Chris was always complaining about why I cannot be as light as you."

"I'm small, I know," grins Felipe. "But I have no problems to fight you."

Kimi's smirk is all the invitation he needs.

They dive straight into it, Felipe's brain racing through everything he knows as he tussles with Kimi's considerably more substantial weight above him. He grapples for position and wins, swinging up onto Kimi's back, latching his arms lightning-quick around his neck. Nearly breathless with laughter more than exertion, Felipe pummels Kimi's head with kisses.

"Don't forget I'm Brazilian," he brags, trying not to laugh. "Jiu-jitsu." 

Underneath him, Kimi manoeuvres a leg and before he knows it, their positions have swapped and Kimi's the one on top with a chokehold on Felipe's arm. He tries to twist it into submission but Felipe isn't giving up. Staying absolutely still to consider his next course of action, Felipe tightens his core and swings his legs wildly from side to side, trying to unbalance Kimi. Slowly, Kimi's body begins to give-- not because he's weak, but because he is collapsing with laughter at how much of a fight Felipe's putting up.

"I give up," Kimi gasps finally, when he gets his breath back. "You win, you win. _Campeão._ "

Felipe claims his prize (a kiss, of course) and Kimi looks at him with eyes full of warmth and fondness. "You always fight so hard."

 

 

x.

"I can see you at India," Kimi's voice is muffled over the phone line, too muffled for Felipe to figure out if that's a question or a statement.

"I'm alone then," Felipe says and he wonders when that became the codeword for yes.

He can almost hear the smile in Kimi's voice as he says, "Okay, send you the hotel room soon." And he kind of wishes he didn't.

 

 

x.

But the race itself is a disaster.

On his 150th race start, Felipe crashes out in the 32nd lap, costing himself and the team desperately-needed points.

Fernando shoots him a dirty look in the locker rooms as they get changed, but even that doesn't annoy him half as much as Rob's crestfallen face. Sorry, Felipe thinks. Sorry for driving like this. Sorry for not helping. Sorry I can't win. Sorry for everything.

Felipe knows where Kimi is, hidden away in some nondescript hotel again. Usually, Felipe would be buzzing out of his boots at the prospect of seeing him, but tonight is different.

Tonight it hurts.

The thought of Kimi, of doing what they always do-- all of a sudden it's unbearable. 

Unbearable because everything they do now only seems to emphasise what they have lost, both on the track and off it. Things have changed, and no matter what, no matter how many furtive stolen moments they share in hotel rooms all over the world, it's never going to be the same again. The best season of his career, Kimi had said of 2007. The truth is it had been the best of his too. But Kimi's gone now and it's never going to be 2007 again, and the unforgiving finality of it is sharp and bitter in his mouth.

Halfway down the corridor of his own hotel, he turns back and locks himself in his room instead.

 

 

x.

Kimi doesn't message or call. In fact, it's like he's dropped off the face of the Earth, and Felipe begins to wonder if his guilt at standing him up was more than a little misplaced.

 

 

x.

As always, he's wrong.

Felipe's about to get into his car and go home after watching São Paulo lose 1-0 at home to Palmeiras when a voice calling out his name stops him in his tracks. He knows that voice. He's heard it say his name a thousand times before.

Kimi.

"Knew you'd be at the match."

Of course Kimi knew. He's been here himself. The day he took Kimi to one of these very matches seems an impossibly long time ago now, he thinks idly. It wasn't a special match or anything, just another weekend league match, and Kimi probably had not enjoyed himself very much, but it had been fun, still.

"India," Kimi says simply. "You didn't come."

Flat, accusatory to anyone who didn't know Kimi. but Felipe does, and he could cut himself on the knives in his voice.

"Sorry," is all Felipe can offer.

"Why not," demands Kimi, quiet and dangerous.

What can he say anyway? That the race had left him close to choking on his own bitterness, that the thought of seeing Kimi that night had been so painful it damn near drove him to tears?

"Forget it," Kimi scoffs. "I should have expected this. Why see me when you can see your family? Must be so nice for you that you can choose, one night me, one night them."

Wait, did Kimi really think that? That because Felipe had something to go home to, this mattered less? The thought infuriates him. If anything, he was the one risking more, giving up more for this thing between them, whatever the fuck it was. He is not someone with nothing to lose. Felipe has his whole world to lose and more. But what was Kimi giving up for him? If anything, Kimi's the one who's got it easy, and maybe Felipe is just a consolation prize to him, nothing more than a salvaged trophy excavated from the destroyed debris of his life.

But for Felipe, Kimi isn't some temporary plaything, or something to mess around with as he puts the rest of his life in order-- he's _got_ his life in order. And Kimi's what Felipe's been gambling all of that on.

And for what?

He storms up to Kimi, eyes ablaze, his heart pounding harder and faster than it ever has.

"You think it's more easy for me? You think I'm having fun? Fuck you," he snarls. "Just because your marriage--"

"Don't," Kimi cuts him off, his voice like poison. "Just go home. Go home to your wife and your son."

So he does.

He goes home and for whatever reason, he finds himself with his face buried in a cushion, sobbing hard enough for his chest to ache.

 

 

x.

When he shows up at practice sullen and silent with bruises under his eyes, he lets them think it's the loss.

Better that than what it really was.

 

 

[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PODwPsUmUCg).

It is one of the most painful times of his life. Weeks and weeks of swinging between anger and desperation and finally Felipe decides that enough is enough. It's Brazil, the last race of the season. It's their time. He knows where they were supposed to meet.

He gets to the hotel, a reservation made months in advance, and collects the keys from reception. When he lets himself in, Felipe can smell it from the doorway.

"How much did you drink?"

He doesn't need an answer, not really.

"Sorry. About India. I should not have made you wait."

Kimi's eyes are red and glazed over, but he stays silent.

"I was thinking so much about you."

Still no response. And maybe it's hopeless trying to carry out this conversation when it looks like Kimi's already gone through a bottle of vodka, but he has to. It's remarkable that Kimi is here at all, after the way they had left things. He walks into the room, sits on the edge of the bed, and continues.

"During the race, I was thinking about you. I was thinking about when we were together in Ferrari. We were good, you think? I helped you. You helped me. I stood the best chance with you. You are my only team mate who helped me like that."

"You too," Kimi agrees hoarsely, the first words he's said all evening. “My best season.”

This confession is doing hell to Felipe's heart.

"If you were so happy, why did you go?" Too late. Felipe can't keep the anger and accusation out of his voice, not when he's had this question simmering at the back of his throat for years. "That's what I was thinking. You had one more year still. We could have had a whole year together. You left me."

Kimi offers nothing in return. His stare is blank, but his hands fist uncomfortably in his pockets. He isn't dodging the question-- Felipe knows him well enough by now to see that. He really doesn't have an answer. A short stab of guilt, ice cold and piercing in his chest, but Felipe presses on.

"Thought you left because of me. Thought you didn't want to be my team mate anymore."

Kimi's eyebrows knit together in frustration, his mouth parts like he wants to say something.

Felipe laughs bitterly before he can, shaking his head at himself. "You know I was so crazy. I was so crazy, I couldn't take it anymore. I asked a reporter if you were coming back, I couldn't stand it, all the-- so many rumours every day. Is he coming back, I asked. Like an idiot, I--"

And then Kimi is on him like a storm, enveloping him in a fevered, desperate rush of limbs and lips.

But Felipe still can't stop himself. Something in him has broken. They've been through so much, the both of them. He sobs it out against the curve of Kimi's neck, even as Kimi's arms tighten across his back.

"Kimi, I wanted to win with you."

Kimi says nothing but buries his face in Felipe's shoulder, his body shuddering gently with what Felipe hopes aren't sobs. It hits him now, in the heat of Kimi's shaky embrace, how much Kimi is doing for this-- certainly a lot more than they ever did in 2007, perfect team mates or not. That he is even here at all after their last exchange is testament enough. In the past two years, Kimi has gotten into countless planes and followed him all over the world, flown for hours and waited quietly on his own just for a few hours in a pathetic hotel room with Felipe. Everything he thought in Brazil, on that awful day outside the football stadium, was wrong. They were both sacrificing and gambling in their own way. 

They were both fighting for this. 

They both want this.

 

 

x.

Later that night, Felipe thinks of them, and of all the things he is putting on the line for this, this stupid thing between them. His wife, his family, his sanity. But maybe that's the price to pay for the warmth that floods his veins as he watches Kimi sleep next to him. A small price for the privilege of Kimi's secret smiles and cold hands, for the sound of his name in Kimi's mouth and Kimi in his arms. Felipe touches him, tentatively, marveling at the low, slow in-out of his breathing and thinks yeah, maybe.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _ti aspetto_ : (italian) i'm waiting  
>  _campeão_ : (portuguese) champion
> 
>  **a/n:** i haven't watched f1 in years, but i tried to keep the timeline as logical and close to reality as possible. i started out saying i wouldn't stress out over things like that, but in the end i couldn't help it!


End file.
